


Blackbird, Fly

by SniperMoran



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: And then this happened, I swear this was going to have a happy ending, I'm Sorry, Sebastian having a hard time, Sweeney Todd - Freeform, but it doesn't, even broken Sebastian is weird, had some feelings to set free, suicidal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 00:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9691166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SniperMoran/pseuds/SniperMoran
Summary: After a life filled with one tragic incident after another, living with and falling in love with the Consulting Criminal James Moriarty, Sebastian thought those days had passed.They were the ones to dole out the tragedies, they didn't have them themselves.But then he hears the news of Jim's death.And it's just one tragedy too many.Even strong men have limits.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Don't reach too far or run too blindly  
> while things look beautiful at the time  
> it only takes a second for everything to change

He stared at his phone a bit in disbelief, the shock still controlling his brain to the point where he didn't even notice the tears that were streaming down his cheeks. Not until he licked at his suddenly dry lips and tasted the saltiness of the saline.

This couldn't be happening, right? It had to be some sort of elaborate joke and someone was going to pop up out from behind the fucking couch with some fucking camera and shout "Punk'd!" or whatever.

Of course, if that happened, he'd be pulling his gun on someone and firing.

But this was no joke.

Suddenly, everything in the world was crashing down around him. He felt like he was suffocating in the dust cloud of it all. It was crushing him and he could feel the pain in his chest, the difficulty to breathe becoming a reality. He wanted to die, here and now. Wanted to let it consume him, let his imagination, mind over matter, pull him under into that numb darkness.

 

But he refused.

He sniffed, wiping stubbornly at his eyes and face with a sleeve. Pushing himself up from the couch, he tossed his phone to the side. He couldn't let it get to him. Couldn't let this news suffocate him, crush him, kill him.

He let out a breath, shaky and labored, before making his way to the bathroom.  
The door closed behind him and the lock clicked into place.  
Moments later, the shower was turned on, water spraying down and filling the room with fog.

But he slipped to the floor of the tub, naked and breaking. His knees pulled tightly to his chest as his face contorted in pain, the tears that streamed down his cheeks masking themselves with the water falling from the shower-head over his crumbled form. He pulled his arms up, tangling his desperate fingers into his dirty blond hair.

He wasn't sure how long he had held his breath in, wasn't sure how long the sound was held in with that life-giving air. Until he gasped in, the sob a soul shattering sound being torn from a grown man. He pulled at his hair until there was a dull pain, but his body was too numb to fully register. Frustrated and holding in the sound of another sob, he slapped one wet hand repeatedly against the shower wall, not even noticing as bone broke through flesh and the crimson started to mix with the saline and the water pouring down over him.

And still it didn't hurt quite as badly as his heart.

The blood rumbled in his head, in his ears. The sound of the water pounding against his skin was far away as he held in the sobs. His body shook with the strength it was taking to hold back the floodgates but it wouldn't hold. Not forever. Not much longer.

He wasn't strong.  
Not without that which gave him strength.

He wasn't sure how much time passed, or how many times he had tried to push through the sobbing and the stabbing pain in his chest. But by the time his tears had run dry and the dull pain in his hand became a searing pain, the water had run cold.

But still he sat there under the freezing water, his body already numb. He sniffed again, the sound wholly pathetic in nature as it echoed around the ceramic of the shower.  
He grasped feebly at his hair, tugging it with his hand that wasn't torn apart by his own stupidity. He needed purchase with something, needing to ground himself.

More time passed, he was sure of it. And at some point during the passage of time he had managed to turn the water off. He listened to the gurgling of the pipes as the water drained. Listened to the crushing silence that fell in the echoing bathroom once the water had stopped sounding.

He was surrounded by nothingness and silence, drenched in water and regret and shame and a mixture of his own blood and stupidity.

When he eventually picked himself up from the floor of the tub, he wasn't sure how much time in total had passed. He didn't really care. Time had no meaning, anyway. It was a stupid concept created to bring panic and control simultaneously, and he had room for neither in the numbness that was consuming him and eating him alive. He imagined, then, that this must be what it felt like to be a black hole.  
He shuffled around the bathroom in an aimless daze, drying himself off lazily, not caring that he bloodied the towel. Not like anyone would complain about it.  
The first aid kit was pulled from beneath the sink and tossed to the ground where he dug through it for something to clean his wound. He knew he should probably go to the fucking hospital for it but--....  
That wasn't going to happen.

So he cleaned his wound, created by his own mindless tantrum, patched it up best he could with the supplies he had and left the first aid kit open there on the ground. Wrapped in bloodied towel, he shuffled to his room, a room he had shared. He stopped in front of his closet and pulled out some clothes, dropping the towel in the process. He dressed, thoughtlessly, his face blank and his heart empty.  
He stared at himself in the mirror for a moment, barely recognizing the shell of a man that stared back at him. Stubbornly, he wiped at tears again with his sleeve before shuffling back to the bathroom.  
He sank down in front of the sink, leaning his head back and taking a breath. Opening his eyes again, he glanced over towards the first aid kit, his eyes falling on a glinting metal object.  
Scalpel.

A laugh came out in the form of a quick forced breath out, and a roll of the eyes. He leaned forward slightly, fingers clenching around the cool metal as he picked it up, eyes focusing on it for a moment.  
"...'see how they glisten'..." he breathed, closing his eyes. He leaned back against the counter again, closing his hand in a fist around the scalpel, bringing his fist against his chest, holding it there. He didn't mind the biting of the metal into his palm. Didn't mind the feel of warmth that came after the biting.  
There was a darkness inside his heart. A darkness inside his mind. Eating him up, consuming him, and spitting him out just to start the process all over again.  
He huffed lightly, letting his eyes open slowly, his lashes sticking a moment, still heavy with saline.

Slowly, carefully, he pulled his hand away from his chest, unfurling his fist. He stared down at the metal in his hand, stained red now, and the trail of red that ran down his wrist. Another line from the same song slipped into his mind. "...'you will drip precious rubies'..." he breathed out, his voice barely loud enough to be heard.  
He took a shuddering breath, sucking his lips between his teeth as he looked up at the ceiling. If he were any other man, he might be praying. But he wasn't any other man. He was himself.  
His thoughts were not on any omnipresent or omnipotent being. His mind was on birds. Blackbirds. Magpies. Flying through the sky. A tiger running just below, trying to catch the fluttering, flying creatures. Not seeing the cliff that was fast approaching....

....and then careening over the edge.

 

It was hours later before anyone came home.  
And they were hours too late, as the linoleum of the bathroom was already stained with a river of crimson, the scalpel dripping with droplets of it as it hung from the hand of the once powerful man. The tiger that couldn't see the cliff that lay before him as he foolishly tried to fly with birds he could never reach.

**Author's Note:**

> {Apologies for the feels fest here...it's been a really bad day.}


End file.
